I have been using Google+ since Thursday evening, or should I say Friday morning (it was already 3am). From the very beginning I really enjoyed all the Circles, Hangouts and Streams. The feature I like the most are the Hangouts. I talk a lot on Skype but didn’t want to pay a monthly fee for video conferencing, and now I don’t have to! Hangouts allow you to chat with up to 10 people at once. You would think it will be a mess with so many people talking, but with Hangouts it really isn’t. Like in a group, the one who speaks the loudest is the one getting into the center of attention – into main camera window. If you don’t like someone talking too much, you can mute him. You can even play a YouTube video simultaneously, showing friends your cool movies. But I won’t be describing all the features, I think groovyPost did it very well. Let’s focus on news and opinions about Google+ on the inside and outside of the network.

The first impressions of the service were mainly positive. Blogs which wrote about their experiences with Google+ were flooded with comments asking for an invite. eBay auctions with ready-to-buy invites were instantly online. People were craving for Google+. On Twitter, you could find users who very happy with the Plus:

and users scared it’s so engaging, it will eat the rest of their free time:

There were also those who spent their day working out the Google+ features at work

Just look at top Twitter gallery photos and you’ll get the view of the madness.

Inside the Google+, users got their hands on testing the new features. Soon we found that:

1. There is no undo button in Circles. Once you add a group of people to a circle by accident, you have to find these people and remove them from that circle. Once you have 40 people in a circle, it starts to get annoying.

2. In the Stream, the posts are sorted by the recent activity, so if there is a post with people commenting on it all the time, you have it all the time at the top of your Stream. I would really prefer to have posts sorted by most +1′s and the posting time.

3. Also in the Stream, once you open a list of collapsed comments, you can’t just hide it. You have to click on the circle assigned to the stream for the post comments to fold up.

4. Within the Photos, you can’t simply move or copy picture from one gallery to the other. You need to upload the photo again to a different gallery.

5. In the mobile version, you cannot see the stream assigned to one circle, you only see the stream of all your circles together, which is annoying.

Users also got creative with what they would like to see within Google+ in the future:

1. A shared music stream, much like the shared YouTube stream in Hangouts. This would allow you to have Google+ playlist, but not necessarily created entirely by you – your friends could help you improve it. Then you could work and chill with Google+ music stream.

2. The ability to post Quora-style questions, allowing the author of that question to curate the best answers and embed it into blogs or articles elsewhere that are relevant to that question.

3. Implement “reblog” style sharing, so that the same post doesn’t show up over and over again. Show the post just once and give attribution to the person who created the post, and the people in your network who shared it.

4. Improve the “+1″ button to be more like the “Like” button for Google+ that brings in articles/blog posts for further discussion here and have a way to bring that discussion back to the blogs/article.

5. Never allow auto-feeds from Twitter/Facebook here.

The last point would mean no posts streamed by apps and plugins from your blog. Is it really a good idea? On one hand, it will force users to write their own thoughts, or share articles personally, visiting the service and engaging in discussion their posts started. On the other hand, we are very comfortable creatures, and having a plugin or an app that shares our content to all social networks is very convenient. We simply share, then go through the posts and check the comments.

Apart from functionality discussions inside and outside of Google+, a lot of jokes appeared on the web, showing how Google slapped Facebook with their new product. The popular polish blog Antyweb gathered some of them. Within Google+ we could also see that Mark Zuckerberg is the most “circled” person. Everyone still waits for his first post though.All in all, I can say users are very satisfied with Google+. Of course, some glitches were found, but it’s still in the “field trial”, so no one gets mad about the imperfections. Did you already try Google+? What are your impressions about it? Share your opinion with us!

Advertisement

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll probably be aware that Google has just launched their ( third!) attempt to combat what is no doubt referred to at the Googleplex as ‘That Little Facebook Problem‘.

So without further ado (and if you’ll ‘scuse the pun), here are some standout +’s and -’s:

PLUS

*Privacy: Google+ allows you to drag and drop your contacts into different ‘Circles’ of friends, and then from there it’s easy to choose which information is made public to which circles – compared to Facebook’s traditionally nonchalant approach to your personal information.

*Integration of live video : Not only can you chat with friends face to face but as a group you can search for and watch videos on YouTube with ease…. Lets be honest, who wouldn’t love a group session discussing the finer points of Rebecca Black lyrics?

*Collects and stores content based on your interests: The ‘Sparks’ feature does what Google does best by allowing you to save multiple key terms as interest topics. New content is then trawled daily from the web and aggregated for your browsing ease – in contrast to when you ‘like’ a brand on facebook, and are provided with only that-brand-specific information displayed in your newsfeed.

*Mobile Photo Uploads: Google+ has a snazzy feature which automatically uploads photos from your phone and stores them privately for you to sort through later on down the track at your leisure – throw out your USB cables people!

MINUS

*Where’s my gamer apps?? Whilst I have no problems with a world sans-Farmville; at the moment there is no ability to host any games, which is a feature Facebook currently has over Plus in spades …Although with the rise (and rise) in social gaming, this is surely something that won’t be ignored by Google in the future.

*It is standalone – i.e. there are no integration services with other accounts – which is a bummer for those socialites who love to simultaneously broadcast their thoughts over multiple networks (e.g. twitter and LinkedIn) at the same time.

*It’s Invite Only at this stage, so if you are lucky enough to be one of the ‘chosen ones’ with early access, you should feel special (ignoring the fact that your Plus network is probably severely depleted compared to your current Facebook friends) – and for the masses it smacks of exclusivity.

On a side note, something else to take into consideration is that at the moment there is really no way for businesses to tap into their audiences in the same way that Facebook allows ‘fan pages’. Yes, you can ‘+1′ on articles or websites that appear in your Google searches as effective ‘recommendations’, but it does make me wonder…. How does Google plan to make money from Plus? Watch this space.

his post is meant to be a getting started guide for those of us who got an invite and are now wondering how to use Google+ . If you’re looking for an overview of Google+ check out Part 1 of this post: Google+ and World Domination.

Start with your Google ProfileYour profile is going to list your +1′s, posts on Google+ and more soon we don’t know about yet. Fill out your about section. Make sure you add links to your other networks, your blog and your syndicated content (here’s how). If you don’t want people to see your videos, photos, buzz, you can turn those tabs off in the settings. If you don’t have any, turn them off until you do.

To edit your existing profile click the blue edit button and then click the section you want to edit. Make your changes and set who you want to see that section. Make sure you click the “done editing” link at the top of the page to save your changes.

Account OverviewThis is where you can add other email addresses to login with, decide what applications have access to your profile, turn Google+ on on non-Google sites etc.

Profile and PrivacyEdit the visibility of your posts and photos, what information in your profile is public, who can tag you in photos. You can add your interests (called “sparks”) so Google can feed you topics you may be interested in. Remember that only you see that list of interests. At least right now.

Scroll down to the bottom of the window to see your privacy settings. The dashboard is where you’ll make your settings, the Privacy Center tells you more about what that all means. I can’t stress enough how important it is to go to the dashboard and set your privacy settings before you dig into Google+’s features. This can be a very enlightening experience since it covers not just Google+ but all of your connections within the Google empire. Google+ has it’s own privacy policy, here’s a link.

Google+This is where you set things like delivery preferences. It’s fun for about 12 seconds to have alerts when people

Google+ privacy settings

comment on your posts go to your phone. After that it will drive you batty. Same thing with email. If you get one for every time anybody comments it will drive you bats.

Here are my settings, but this is really a subjective thing. Less may be better. Pay special attention to the geotagging of uploaded photos and who gets to see tags linked directly to your profile.

LanguageIt wouldn’t be Google if there wasn’t an option like this. Self explanatory, but it is fun to add other languages just to add interest.

Data LiberationWow, this is pretty cool. Download a backup of all your data. This is going to be a list building goldmine. I can hardly wait for Gist to tie into this. It’s also very useful to archive your conversations in case something happens.

Connected AccountsHmm, this is interesting since the accounts are connected to your Google profile, but so far there’s no way to say, share a message from Google+ to Twitter. The other interesting thing is Google will use this data to “see relevant content your friends share on the web.” Hmm, Google will know even more about us, seems like socially targeted ads are obvious? Still, from a position of letting people know how to find you it’s useful.Google+ Hacks and tipsOK, now you can start using it. In my roaming and poking about I found some cool stuff to share about using Google+. Many of them cement your relationship with Google products, like the Google Chrome extension and the Android app. Imagine that.

Google+ preferencesGoogle+ SettingsThis drops down from the upper right of your screen. Really you’ve already covered a lot of this in your profile, but it’s very interesting to note the “web history” tab. You think Google’s got their eye on you now? Just wait. I left this feature turned off, with the number of different types of businesses I look up my history would be all over the map. Besides, I don’t want to be fed more of the same, I prefer to decide what I see.

Chrome ExtensionAdds desktop notifications and you can post or respond from a popup window. It doesn’t have a button to share the page you’re on yet, but that’s got to be a given doesn’t it? Best yet it allows you to switch between different Google accounts on the fly. Get it here.

CirclesThe circles feature has been much touted. Basically circles are groups of people you are connected to and you create circles that relate to your relationship with the friends you add to it. Some may be friends, groups around your business, a hobby or people you want to get to know better.

People can be in more than one group and when you send a message you can decide if you are sending it to everyone, all your circles, or specific circles. This way you can really focus your messaging and not bore your group of horse people with recipes you meant to only send to your culinary types. Nice. It reminds me a bit of the idea Diaspora had where you could create different groups for sharing particular information. Google did that much better. In fact there’s a hack to do the same thing with Facebook here.

Once you’ve created a few circles and you start adding more you may want to copy the friends in one circle into another circle. Easy. Just go to the circle’s tab, click on the circle you want to copy and select “View circle in tab”. You’ll see an option for more actions in the upper right corner. Select some or click “select all” all and drag and drop your friends to another circle.

Manage your circlesHide friends in CirclesIf you want to hide friends in your circles from public view, go to the Google+ profile and click the edit button. Under your profile photo you’ll see the icons of people you’ve put in circles. Click the little earth icon and viola, you’ll see options on who gets to view who’s in your circles.

User profilesWhen you hover over another user’s profile pic you’ll see a mini profile to get an idea about them. If they are already in circles you’ll see what ones you’ve added them to.SparksSparks are your areas of interest. Google use these to categorize you and suggest you to other people with similar interests. It also uses it to show you topics you might want to learn more about. Click on the “sparks” link under your profile pic and either search or browse for interesting stuff to spark your interest and share with your circles.

PhotosYou can upload photos from your phone (easiest if you have Android, iPhone coming soon) or by dragging and dropping from your desktop. Click on a photo to edit who gets to see it, tags, captions, moderate comments and even some limited photo editing capabilities ala Picassa.

Google+ post preferencesControl who you share withBesides sharing only within circles you can set the sharing preferences on a post. You can disable comments or re shares, but only after the post is added. Click the obscure little arrow in the upper right of the post and you’ll see this menu where you can change the preferences on the post.

SharingSharing a post is pretty straight-forward. You can add a link, a photo or a video just like Facebook, and you can also add a geo-location tag with Google Places.By default Google Places is turned off, and I recommend using this feature judiciously. Privacy and home security lean towards only using this on your laptop, not at home.

Click the timestamp on a post to get a permalink to share on your other networks, (just like Twitter)Mute postsWhen a post gets commented on again it can re-surface to the top of your notifications long after you’ve lost interest in the thread. (Just like Facebook) Click the arrow in the top right of the post and select mute and you’ll not get the notifications anymore. Click un mute if you want to get them again.

Formatting textYou can use limited text formatting just like you can in Google Buzz. Write rich text formatting like this *bold*, -strike through- or _italic_ . I expect there will be more options at some point.

Shortcut keysBeing able to use shortcuts when posting or commenting is very useful. Here are a few shortcut keys while in Google plus.

Q open chat K scroll up within a single post J scroll down within a single post Return or Enter Start a comment Tab and Return End a comment Space Bar Scroll down your stream

TaggingYou can tag your friends in a post by putting either the + or the @ symbol in front of their name. Unlike Twitter this is their full name, so instead of @Jfoutsyou’d use @JanetFouts. Just like Facebook a menu will show up once you start typing with suggestions from your connections. You can tag people you are not connected to which brings me to how to NOT allow people to tag you.This is controlled in your settings panel under “People whose tags of you are automatically approved to link to your Profile:”

The launch of Google+ apps sends a powerful signal – the personalized web has begun. What this means is that the way information is structured and accessed will turn on the individual, or rather their personal profile which is a composite of all the data collected on the basis of what they have searched for and shared. What this means for brands and their marketing is enormous.

As the individual becomes the filter through which all information must pass, the onus for brands to be defined and social becomes acute. Here’s why.

Till now, search was outward facing. When you wanted to find something you entered its name and in most cases, relied on Google to provide a list of ranked links to that topic.But now search, and the way information is structured and accessed is becoming increasingly inward facing with the individual as the filter. That means when you visit a website the ads will reflect brands, topics or causes that you have demonstrated a past interest in through what you searched and shared. In short, your experience of the web is being built from the individual out, in circles as Valeria Maltioni rightly explains.

With this shift in informational structure and emphasis in mind, what happens to the undefined brand? How does a brand that either stands for nothing, or more commonly, several things at once, pass through the individual filter of the personalized web?

Brands reluctant to do the hard work of defining what they stand for and integrating that within their organization, or brands that mistakes social technology as an end in itself rather than as tools to connect people emotionally, run the very real risk of becoming invisible and obsolete. Put simply, brands must accept that they are no longer the destination. Their customer is. And as such, self-definition is a critical tools through which your brand, and its products and services, can reach it target audience.

If you doubt the importance of this shift, you need only look at how much competition there is for the potential customer’s attention these days and platforms (like SocialVibe) or strategies (like bonuses, rewards or coupons) that are used to command it.

Brands are facing a new competitive landscape in which self-definition, core values and purpose will increasingly define their ability to reach customers that only allow what is meaningful in their lives to pass through their filter.

At the 4A’s conference this year, Unilever CMO Keith Weed asserted that “the customers are in charge” of the conversation. The advent of Google+ and the emergence of the personalized web means this is more true than ever. Brands, and their advertising partners, must wake up to this challenge and define themselves with clarity, consistency and authenticity. Otherwise they just might find themselves shouting in a ghost town.

Do you believe the customer is increasingly in control? How do you think brands must respond to the personalized web?

I have a question, and I once again really don’t have an answer, just some sneaking suspicions coupled with some mild and growing concerns. I’m looking for your insight.

See, the other day, as I was gathering posts on Google+ for the Blog Library, I came across a post by the well-known Robert Scoble. The post is called “Why yo momma won’t use Google Plus (and why that thrills me to no end). I read the post and it kind of rubbed me the wrong way, but I was tired and so I figured I was just feeling cranky.

However, I found that as time went on, the post kept kind of bugging me, like one of those darned fruit flies that pops up in July. There are a few things that are bothering me, and coming together with other posts I’ve read, I’m kind of feeling like Google+ is being constructed as a velvet rope, smoke-filled, dancing lady-filled men’s lounge. I don’t have an invite to Google+ so I’m not saying this is so, but I’d like to tell you why I’m feeling this way, and you can then let me know if I’m totally off track.

Deal?

Issue 1: Distinguishing between “Social Media Stars” and “your mom”

Now before you get hot under the collar, I do understand metaphorical language. By “your mom,” Scoble means the average user, and that could (technically) be a man or a woman. However, he uses the word “mom” which is generally speaking not gender neutral. Here is a phrase that caught my attention in his post:

Since most of the people who are on Google+ so far are geeks, insiders, social media stars, journalists, and other people (Google admitted tonight they are only accepting people who have strong social graphs so that they can both make sure everyone has a good first experience as well as test out some of the technology before opening it up to a wider audience) the chances normal people (metaphorically speaking, your mom) won’t hear about Google+ from normal users for quite a while.

First, who are Social Media superstars? What does “strong social graph” mean? It feels like this is this summer’s answer to last year’s Fast Company Influence Project, only now the winners will be touting their Google+ status rather than win a chance to appear on Fast Company’s cover. And why would normal people (aka your mom) be distinguished from an environment where a pleasant online experience can take place? I’ve never interacted with Robert Scoble at all on Twitter, nor have I interacted with Ashton Kutcherr. I’m still enjoying myself rather well. I probably have a lot more in common with “your mom” than I do with some of these super stars and “other people.”

Later in the post, Scoble writes:

Come on now, we geeks and early adopters and social media gurus need a place to talk free of folks who think Justin Bieber is the second coming of Christ. That’s what we have in Google+ right now. Do we really want to mess that up?

Now, granted, I don’t really consider myself a sufferer of Bieber Fever. However, I wouldn’t say that folks who do suffer from that affliction are “messing up” Twitter. They’re using it for their purposes and I’d wager a lot of them don’t know who the “social media gurus” are.

The other problem with this statement, though, hearkens back to the title. To me, feminizing the title and repeatedly using “your mom” equates people who would “mess up” Google+ with women. Am I reading into this too much?

Issue 2: Women and Technology

A lot of women know that there is an underlying belief held sacred by men – “Women can’t do technology.” I have to have my dad talk to the car guys when I take my car in for repairs because the guys simply will not listen to me. When I call the maintenance guys where I live and tell them my freezer isn’t freezing or my dryer isn’t drying, they don’t believe me. It feels like this belief, this sensation that women and technology don’t mix, is also creating an idea that women won’t like Google+ because it’s too nerdy or technologically involved.

Scoble writes, “But they haven’t yet proven that they can convince your mom to use it and that’s just fine with me.”

Again, if the post had been written about “techies versus normal people,” I don’t think I’d have this anti-woman sensation. In a lot of sentences, Scoble does distinguish between “us nerds” and “normal people.” But it’s that use of the word “mom” over and over again that raises my eyebrow and maybe even my dander.

Maybe “your mom” is a woman like Liz Strauss, Charlene Li, Peggy Fitzpatrick, or Carol Roth. Maybe “your mom” is even more geeky than Larry Page. Should she still stay on Facebook?

And doesn’t “stay on Facebook with your kids and grandkids” kind of sound like “stay in the kitchen while us men work on the car?” I don’t know. Maybe it’s just my ancestors whispering in my ear.

Issue 3: It’s mostly men I see talking about Google+

So far, I’ve only seen one woman write a blog post about Google+, and that was Gini Dietrich. Gini doesn’t have an invite to Google+ yet and as of the writing of her post, she felt a bit unsure about it. All of the other posts I’ve seen so far have been by men. So what does that mean? Are women fulfilling the stereotype or do we just not feel welcome?

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this issue – and remember, I could be 100% on the wrong track. I’d be happy to hear it, actually!

If you subscribe to any technology-related blogs or website updates, chances are you’ve been getting some buzz about the Google+ Project. Some criticize the name, others wonder why it’s labeled as a project, and those worthy of an invite to the limited field trial are discussing some of the new features it has to offer. And of course, there is the ultimate question – is this Google’s attempt to compete with Facebook? Whether you think it will fail miserably or it is the future of social networking, there is unarguably a wave of curiosity from the digital world. After Google stopped the invitation process some users even put their invites up for auction on eBay! Here’s what we’ve been able to gather from the dozens of articles and reviews that are already out on the web before Google+ has even launched.

First features include:

Circles – easy way to organize your contacts into social groups. This feature is dubbed superior to Facebook’s groups. It simply helps you keep work contacts, family members and friends separate and allows you to segment your social contacts even further.

Hangouts – video chat for groups which is also considered a major benefit over Facebook. However, Mark Zukerburg was quick to respond with a new video chat feature announcement.

Instant Upload – quick way to upload your phone pictures to a private, centralized album. It is currently compatible with Android phones but Google plans to bring it to other phones as well.

Sparks – suggests content based on your preferences and interests. You can share this content with certain Circles instead of all of your Google+ contacts at once.

Huddle – group text chat. This feature would come in handy when deciding on a restaurant or a movie with a group of people.

With these fairly simple to use applications, Google+ managed to incorporate some of the key social features of Twitter, Facebook, and Skype. It has Twitter’s “asymmetric follow” model where you can follow someone on Google+ without them following you back and vice versa. Google’s stream is very familiar to Facebook’s News Feed. And since Skype’s group chat is not included for their free accounts, Google + members can use Hangouts to video chat with up to 10 participants at once.

Search Engine Land’s Greg Sterling suggests that many of the Facebook and Twitter users will see no need for Plus. However, he speculates that over time selected features such as Huddle, Hangout, and Instant Upload, could draw users in. Even if users are interested in joining Google+, there is the question of uploading your contacts. You can’t import your friends directly from Facebook to Google+ but one can easily go through Yahoo to work around this restriction.

Google+ is not live yet, but those who got an invite are able to invite their friends. Google warns that it will close and reopen the invitation process periodically until official public release which has not been announced. Could this slow rollout be a marketing calculation to stimulate demand? Not sure, but it seems to be working fairly well to spark some interest around Google+.

If you subscribe to any technology-related blogs or website updates, chances are you’ve been getting some buzz about the Google+ Project. Some criticize the name, others wonder why it’s labeled as a project, and those worthy of an invite to the limited field trial are discussing some of the new features it has to offer. And of course, there is the ultimate question – is this Google’s attempt to compete with Facebook? Whether you think it will fail miserably or it is the future of social networking, there is unarguably a wave of curiosity from the digital world. After Google stopped the invitation process some users even put their invites up for auction on eBay! Here’s what we’ve been able to gather from the dozens of articles and reviews that are already out on the web before Google+ has even launched.

First features include:

Circles – easy way to organize your contacts into social groups. This feature is dubbed superior to Facebook’s groups. It simply helps you keep work contacts, family members and friends separate and allows you to segment your social contacts even further.

Hangouts – video chat for groups which is also considered a major benefit over Facebook. However, Mark Zukerburg was quick to respond with a new video chat feature announcement.

Instant Upload – quick way to upload your phone pictures to a private, centralized album. It is currently compatible with Android phones but Google plans to bring it to other phones as well.

Sparks – suggests content based on your preferences and interests. You can share this content with certain Circles instead of all of your Google+ contacts at once.

Huddle – group text chat. This feature would come in handy when deciding on a restaurant or a movie with a group of people.

With these fairly simple to use applications, Google+ managed to incorporate some of the key social features of Twitter, Facebook, and Skype. It has Twitter’s “asymmetric follow” model where you can follow someone on Google+ without them following you back and vice versa. Google’s stream is very familiar to Facebook’s News Feed. And since Skype’s group chat is not included for their free accounts, Google + members can use Hangouts to video chat with up to 10 participants at once.